


Night Terrors, Night Torment

by Pathfinder (Coffeeaftermidnight)



Series: Horrors au [8]
Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Character Death, Flashbacks, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Horror, Mental Health Issues, Nightmare Fuel, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:34:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27318577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffeeaftermidnight/pseuds/Pathfinder
Summary: The Slenderman never forgets a face. This Halloween, government agent and mad scientist Dr. Rico McMallory has a very, very bad night.Part of the Horrors au, a creepypasta au where creeps (called Horrors) have killed off a third of the country's population and sent it spiraling into a post apocalyptic dystopia. That was like 10+ years ago though. You can find out more through the other stories or through my blog at world-of-horrors on Tumblr.Please note this is a horror story and due to me being trapped on mobile I can't tag everything I feel necessary. It also might not make sense to people new to the au as it's surprisingly plot heavy. I hope you enjoy anyway. Happy Halloween!
Series: Horrors au [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537990
Kudos: 11





	Night Terrors, Night Torment

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note for newcomers: Rico here is Scottish and has a written accent. I haven't gotten any complaints about it so I don't think it'll be annoying (maybe inconsistent) but if you have suggestions on improving it, let me know.

He'd never seen the base so dark before, so quiet. By this hour every night, the man would be locked in his lab, working on another god-forsaken experiment. But there'd been a party and he'd been invited, and he'd gone, and he'd enjoyed it enough. Now the base was dark, and quiet, and Dr. Rico McMallory couldn't find Liu.

"Damn it all…"

The memories washed over him, appearing before his eyes in the dark.

_ He wasn't afraid of the dark. Not that it was really dark in these halls. The low lights lit his path, the half moon shining through the glass windows on his side. Rico hummed an old song from the radio, his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. His thoughts wandered. He smiled. _

_ Something crunched under his foot. Rico paused, lifting his shoe.  _

_ He winced. A beetle? Shit, he hadn't watched where he was going. It was too dark to tell what kind. Where was his flashlight…? Rico rustled in his pockets for the small device. Damn it, that could've been a good sample… _

_ But oh, hello. Another scurried around the corner. Rico tilted his head. Didn't seem the right shape to be a cockroach, even in the half light around him. What was it doing in the base…? _

_ He stepped forward, keeping his attention on where he walked this time. The beetle vanished back around the corner. Rico followed.  _

_ A fly buzzed past his head. His stomach turned. What was that smell? Shit, was that what he thought it was? There was another fly crawling on the wall. Something buzzed not far away, not a machine but a hoard, a mass of flying bugs and bad news. _

_ Rico followed the sound. His eyes focused on the ground, stepping around the insects that squirmed on the dirty tile. Without meaning to, he met the corpse's sightless gaze eye to eye. _

_ The scientist flinched. He blinked, pulling back. A fly landed on an intact eyeball, twitching its wings. It crawled on the surface. Rico exhaled. _

_ His new councilor, Geoffrey. The man was as green as they came, just out of school. Not the worst mental health professional Rico had ever met. And now he was dead, lying in a dark puddle, a feast for insects, large holes where his chest used to be. _

_ "God." Rico breathed. "What the hell." _

_ He looked up from the corpse. In front of his face now, a white head without eyes, without nose, the lower half split open like a slit throat, revealing a smile of sharp teeth. _

He was lost, he had to be. Rico gripped his head, burying his fingers in his hair. He never got lost. Not even in his worst benders did he lose himself in such a familiar place. But he didn't recognize the walls around him, and if he couldn't recognize where he was, how was he going to find where he was going?

Think. He pressed his back against the wall, a low, desperate groan leaving his throat. You're panicking, he told himself, closing his eyes as the room began to spin. It's all in your head. Get a hold of yourself.

But he couldn't forget.

_ "Fuckin' hell!" _

_ Rico jumped back. He gripped the front of his shirt, backing away as fast as his legs would obey. The Slenderman chuckled, a waft of hot air leaving its - his? - mouth, and the smell of rust and ancient dirt overwhelmed the rotting corpse. _

_ The doctor glared. God, he wanted a drink. _

_ "Yer awful chipper tanite," he growled. _

_ It stood hunched over the body, the long limbs resting on its knees. Without a sound it uncurled, resting its palms on the tile. Something like a purr echoed from the darkness behind the teeth, and it twisted its head. On all fours, it stepped over the body. Towards him. _

_ He backed up. _

_ "No! Nope!" Rico raised his hands, shielding his face. "Nope, not tanite! You stay the hell away from me!"  _

_ It didn't stop. _

_ "Ah mean et!" Rico shouted. He had to run but could he get away? "Go bother someone else-" _

_ A white hand snatched out, gripped his arm. The Slenderman dragged him closer, digging the spindly fingers into Rico's flesh. _

_ The split mouth moved. _

_ "Tell me, doctor." The voice was male, but so unnatural, coming from that mouth. "Who among them do you love the most?" _

A headache crawled over him, a static pounding in his head. Rico grit his teeth against the pain.

"Ye can't have him," he said, or maybe he just thought. Hard to say through the pain. It didn't matter. Through the static, someone laughed.

_ There was no escaping that grip. Rico turned his head away. His eyes focused on the bugs crawling on the walls. _

_ "Mah business es mah own," the Scotsman snapped. He couldn't get away but he wouldn't give the monster the pleasure of cooperation either. "The hell should I tell you that?" _

_ His stomach turned, a thought occuring. _

_ "What do you mean, them?" _

_ "Heh." The Slenderman sounded so amused. "My children, doctor. The Horrors. Don't pretend you don't care." _

_ It leaned in. Rico leaned away. He closed one eye, then the other. _

_ "I've seen the way you look at them. And I've seen the way they look at you." _

_ Its voice lowered. "Your superiors have, too." _

_ Rico felt the blood draining from his face. "What are you talking about?" He said. "I dinnae what you mean. Ye're crazy, ye are." _

_ "They were going to kill them," that masculine voice whispered. "Put down all three of them, when they outlived their usefulness. The fate of obedient dogs with cruel masters." _

_ Drool dripped from the fangs and sizzled on Rico's coat. He grimaced. The Slenderman was too close. It breathed too close against him. _

_ "Aye," he said. "So what? Ye act like ah need ta do something about thes." _

_ "Haven't you already?" It got closer, god above and hell below somehow the bastard was getting closer. "It's fascinating what a leash you've put on the boy in particular. It's almost like he cares for a human like you." _

_ For a moment he didn't understand. Leash? Boy? What? It - he couldn't mean - _

_ His face screwed up even more. "Who, Liu?" If he leaned back any further his spine would snap in half, he was too old to be doing this. "Please. He's doin' what he was trained ta do." _

_ "Is he, doctor? Is he?" _

_ "Doctor McMallory?" Liu called.  _

_ Rico's eyes opened. No- _

_ The tendrils flowed from the Slenderman's back. _

_ "Then you won't mind if I do this." _

He breathed uneasy against the wall, his eyes half open. The static screamed through his head, buzzing insectoid between his ears. It hurt. 

Something hot poured from his nose and spilled onto his shirt. Nosebleed. Rico almost laughed. Now? Really? Would his eyes bleed next? His mouth? His ears? Was he dying? Was this how he was going to go, half-disassociated against a wall as that  _ thing _ turned his brain into an old tv?

God, it hurt. His eyes closed. God, it hurt so bad.

"Kid…"

_ A black tendril shot out into the darkness. Rico twisted in its grip to follow it.  _

_ "Doctor!" _

_ He struggled. Something was going to happen - he didn't know what but something deep inside him screamed in terror. No, whatever the Thin Man planned, neither him nor Liu should be part of it. He had to get free. _

_ "Don't!" Rico shouted. "Leave him alone! He's just a boy!" _

_ "Too late." _

_ Liu screamed. Rico felt his heart stop. _

_ "No! Stop it!" _

_ Something in the darkness struggled. A body dragged along the floor. Liu fought just as hard as Rico, and with just as little success. From the black the booted feet came into view, then the well tended suit, now stained with blood. Liu gripped the tendril with hands soaked in his own blood. It sunk deep into his chest, sticking out the back to curl loosely around the younger man's neck. _

_ Liu shouted out for Rico again, struggling towards him without success, but all Rico could think about was the tendril in his chest. The same kind of injury his councilor had. The kind of injury even he didn't know a Horror could survive. _

_ "No… no!" _

_ Anger, hot as plasma, blasted through the man. He pulled back a fist and aimed the strongest punch he'd ever thrown at the Slenderman's face. _

_ "Leave him alone!" _

He slid down against the wall, his eyes drifting towards the ceiling. It stood over him, faceless, tall, fingers loose and bloody. If it smiled, if it laughed, Rico could no longer say. He was no longer here, alone in his head. It was in his head, pressing against the walls of his skull. If it didn't turn his brain into mud, leaving him for the morning crew to find, perhaps it would erase him, replace him, place another personality in the hollow shell of his body, someone useful, someone charming, someone more obedient to the desires of the ones above it.

Someone even it wanted to keep alive.

"Why are you doing this?" He asked from the distance he kept from the pain.

And the Slenderman spoke, but even without the words, Rico already knew the answer.

_ The punch missed. It didn't even come close to hitting that corpse-white face. _

_ And it laughed at him. The Slenderman laughed at him for even trying. It laughed, and pushed off the ground. The white claws gripped, and swung.  _

_ Rico hit the wall across the hall. Pain shot through his skull, through his back and hips, but that didn't compare to the fear that hit when his eyes opened again. _

_ Liu screamed out again as the Slenderman crouched over him. Growling, Rico pushed himself to his feet. _

_ "Kid!" He ran forward. "Kid!" _

_ He lunged at the Slenderman. _

_ "Liu!" _

"Leave him alone."

A woman's voice, and not a familiar one. Rico's gaze rolled down to the floor. The Slenderman's dress shoes turned, revealing a pair of legs he'd never seen before, and chains that dangled from two unfamiliar wrists.

The Slenderman spoke.

"Jane?"

_ The lights went out. A power outage, a blanket over the moon, all lights, gone. So was the Slenderman.  _

_ Rico hit the ground. His hand touched warm liquid. Liu's blood. _

_ The lights were gone but he could still see. Rico raised his head, and there he rested, Liu, lying still in the dark. _

_ "Kid?" He called out. Silence came back. _

_ "Kid!" _

_ He almost tripped, trying to get to Liu. He fell to his knees beside Liu, scrambling to touch him, to help him. His fingers touched warm blood, but cold flesh. The green eyes were open, but empty. Black slime coated his neck where the tendril wrapped around it, and through the hole where it once penetrated, Rico could see the tile floor. _

_ A moan of pain left Rico's mouth, a noise more animal than human. _

_ "No… no, no no, no. Wake up. Please wake up. C'mon. Please." _

_ And no amount of begging would change fate. No amount of begging would turn back time. He knew this. And he knew the studies he'd read about Horrors said they had packs like wolves, prides like lions, that they could never care for humans as they did each other. But Liu cared for him undeniably, as a member of his pack. And Rico, unquestionably, felt the same. _

_ A shuddering breath left him, the blood-soaked hand curling into a fist, balling up the wet fabric of Liu's shirt. Rico raised his teary eyes to the darkness. _

_ "What do you want from meh?! You faceless bastard! Tell me! Show yourself!" _

_ And from the darkness, an answer. _

_ "No." _

_ Rico's eyes snapped open. _

It  _ was _ Jane, now that he could see her better. Rico let his head fall limp onto his shoulder. Jane, the first Horror executed under the Three Days Law. She looked… about how he'd expected. About how he'd been told, from those like Nina who'd seen her spirit. He wasn't really himself, he couldn't feel fear or disgust or pity right now. It all hurt too much to process anything like that. But she was still beautiful, even with her neck and limbs detached, floating inches from where they should be connected to her body.

At least she wasn't wearing the clothes they dressed her in. 

Rico looked down to the floor. 

"Leave him alone," she said again.

"So this is where you've been," the Slenderman said. "You are very brave, to come out of hiding to protect him."

"I'm not doing this for him," she said. "I know what you're going to do to him. I won't let you complete another stage in your sick plans."

"My plans?" The Slenderman said as if smiling. "You know my plans after spending months alone here, with humans and traitors for your company? You impress me."

"Keep your compliments. You're not as clever as you think you are, old one. I know your game. I've seen your secrets and I know why you've got your minions crawling around the forest. If you think I'll let you steamroll over the world and reshape it in your image, you're delusional. I might be dead-" and the chains rattled, "but I'm not out of this story yet."

"Are you?" The Slenderman said. "This is a story to you? A chapter in a book as long as human history, maybe. Oh, spirit of vengeance, I have existed long before human history began, and I'll continue long after it ends. Even if you could finish my 'game', I will just begin another, with new players, like I've done so many times before. You're not special in the grand scheme… just to me. You are, after all, the only Horror spirit I have not captured yet."

The Slenderman took a step towards Jane. She didn't move her legs, but the chains swayed.

"I have been looking for you since your death. I had nothing to do with that, you know. But once I take you back to the others, the collection will be complete, and my new plans can begin."

He took another step.

"Do you think you can run forever? Jane, I have forever. You don't have that luxury."

The chains rattled. One snapped out, wrapping around Rico's neck. It forced his head up, and his dull eyes met dark ones full of supernatural fire.

Jane said, "Doctor Rico McMallory, wake the fuck up."

_ Rico breathed. His hands dug into the fabric beneath him. He jerked his head, only half seeing his environment. A pumpkin winked with a buck toothed grin. Plastic bats and streamers made from old soda bottles hang from the ceiling. Candy wrappers piled in the trash can. The party. He'd been at a party. He'd fallen asleep. It was a dream. _

_ And yet nothing about that comforted him. _

_ "Liu-" _

_ The radio beeped, one two three. Rico looked at it, dread filling his heart. It beeped again, one, two, three. He turned towards the door, the open door, and a white hand dragged along the frame, disappearing around the wall. _

_ Rico jumped to his feet. He had to find Liu before it did. _

At her words, he shuddered. He was already awake, he knew he was, but now the world shifted back into focus, hard, like hitting a wall. Rico shook his head, and found himself in a familiar hallway, all alone.

A dream, he told himself, pulling himself to his feet. I was sleepwalking.

He shook, pulling his coat tighter around himself. 

I need to find Liu.

Despite his shaking legs, he ran. Why no one stopped him, he couldn't say, there were security cameras everywhere in this base. But he reached the Horror's quarters uninterrupted, the only one used in that particular hall.

The closed door met his pounding fists.

"Liu?! Liu, are you in there?"

No reaction. The handle didn't move. But a swipe of his card and it opened. Inside was darkness, a bedroom and a lump on the bed.

The lump breathed.

Rico hesitated as he stepped in the room. Was he still dreaming? He twisted, waved his arms around, spun around on unsteady feet, but nothing happened. It seemed like he was awake this time. (But hadn't he been awake before?)

He knelt by Liu and gripped his shoulders. "Liu! Liu, wake up-"

The scientist jerked back as a fist swung out, an instinctive right hook. Shit, he forgot about that. Liu sat up a moment later, eyes wide and awake. He looked from left to right, processing, before he focused fully on Rico.

"Doctor McMallory?" Liu asked. "What's going on?"

Liu was alive. The tension left his body.

"Oh, thank God," he said without thinking. "You're alive - I mean. I mean awake. I just… god, I…"

He looked at Liu, at the Horror's face, and something crushed inside him. How could he explain what he'd seen? How could he even begin to tell someone what had just happened? He couldn't. God, no, he couldn't. They didn't call him 'mad' just for his experiments. They all knew he was unwell, in a way most survivors weren't. What would they do to him, if they thought he was no longer mentally healthy enough to serve them? Would they turn him into an experiment himself again?

Rico stood.

"Came by to check on you. Call it…  _ instinct _ ."

Liu stared. Rico waited for it. The inevitable comments, stupid human, crazy human, reckless human, human human human. But instead, Liu climbed out of bed.

"Are you sure you should be alone tonight, doctor?" He said.

"Ah…" Rico couldn't lie again tonight, but… "Ah ain't sure of a lotta things, lad." His legs were giving way. The stress, the  _ thing _ , had done something to him. "Ah thenk... No, no I cannae. Not tanite."

The Horror nodded, all business. He gestured to his bed. "Sit down, doctor. Let me dress and I'll escort you back to your quarters." The younger man reached out and patted Rico on the shoulder. "No one is going to hurt you while I'm on guard."

Rico sagged.

"Cheers, lad…"

The doctor dropped onto the mattress, listening as Liu stepped away. A light flipped on, followed by the bathroom light as the agent rustled around. A soft groan left Rico, and he rested his cheek against the sheets. The bed, so warm, smelled like Liu. It was oddly comforting, and for a moment…

No. Absolutely not. Focus on - on-

"I owe ye fer thes." 

It's an automatic statement. Rico sat up and held his head in his hands. If Liu said something, he missed it, but he didn't miss the gentle smile that waited for him when he raised his head again.

They left Liu's room, the younger man's arm wrapped around his elder. They didn't talk but the sound of Liu breathing and walking beside him was a comfort. It was the only comfort Rico took on that long walk back to his own quarters. He wondered if Liu felt it too, the presence that followed a few paces behind them.


End file.
